A user may need to access pricing information associated with, for example, an investment instrument (e.g., a currency denominated amount or a spread value). For example, a trader may need to access pricing information when making trading decisions (e.g., whether or not a particular investment instrument should be bought or sold). Similarly, pricing information may be needed to manage risk (e.g., a risk associated with a portfolio of investment instruments).
The pricing information associated with an investment instrument may be based on a number of underlying and inter-related values. For example, pricing information associated with a bond may depend on a current rate and broker quotes. Once the pricing information is calculated based on these underlying values, the information can be provided to a user.
A number of problems, however, may be encountered when pricing information is generated. For example, pricing information can be very dynamic (e.g., broker quotes might continuously change during the day) and therefore a significant number of calculations may need to be performed. Moreover, pricing information is typically time-sensitive (e.g., a trader may need to know a current bond price in order to make a trading decision), so the calculations need to be performed in substantially real-time. In addition, a user may need to access pricing information associated with a large number of investment instruments (e.g., hundreds of bonds). These factors can make the generation and use of pricing information an expensive and complex task (e.g., requiring a large amount of computer resources).